This story began as a kinkmeme fill. It took on a life of its own and turned into a far lengthier story than I had ever intended. I had a lot of amazing, encouraging readers (hopefully some of whom will follow AtKH-AtKM to it's conclusion here) who were very helpful in keeping the various threads of content together. A lot of the chapters will be familiar, although I have been editing and (hopefully) catching all the little mistakes that I found in the meme-posts.For some reason I can't seem to get things to post onto LJ anymore, so I decided to post here.

I do have to put a warning up for content: This story can be very cruel. I can promise that the content is there to enforce plot points, not to be pointlessly gratuitous, but it is there. The following will contain depictions and descriptions of torture, rape and graphic violence.

Where it all began...

The first thing Shepard noticed in the ruined apartment, was the thick tang of decomp and blood. It hung over the rubble like a shroud, lingering thick and heavy on her tongue despite the air filters running in her helmet. On the Citadel, a scene like this would have been cordoned off and sterilized, combed over for evidence, sprayed with cleansers and deodorizers; but here on Omega, the dead were left where they fell. The most they could hope for was to have possessions, armor and weaponry looted by those they had called companions or friends.

The floor was slick with a sheen of water in places, where heavy caliber rounds had chewed through the water lines concealed in the walls. Shepard ran a gloved finger over the pockmarks, 'artillery canon' she thought with a shake of her head, this Archangel must have been one tough son of a bitch if the mercs had brought in a gunship to bring him down.

There was little else to see in the building. Shattered doors on the lower levels led through into a network of abandoned garages and storage areas, a pile of stripped and decomposing vorcha yielded nothing but a cloying reek strong enough to make Shepard gag. In the main, upper rooms the gunship damage was worse, with storage crates, furniture and walls reduced to a scattering of shattered rubble. A warped, overheated sniper rifle lay next to an expansive slick of blood smeared across the filthy floor, dried now to a near black in the dim lighting.

Looking around at the devastation, Shepard felt a slight pang of regret for the faceless vigilante who had fallen here. Eyeing the drag marks in the blood stains on the floor, she hopes faintly that this Archangel had been dead before the mercs took him.

On the bridge below the shattered windows, Miranda waves up at Shepard, a look of bored impatience stamped on her perfect features. Grunt seemed content enough with the delay, kicking pieces of broken masonry loose from the bridge and booting them over the edge, watching them tumble down into the lower levels with a guttural bark of childlike amusement. Shepard wonders for a moment how things would have ended if she had made the decision to come to Omega immediately, as Miranda had suggested; wonders if this idealistic vigilante would have still died in this filthy wreck of an apartment if she hadn't decided that Okeer's elusive knowledge was a priority. She hopes that this 'Doctor Solus' has managed to keep himself alive at least, that this whole Omega detour hasn't been a colossal waste of time.

"Well," Shepard muttered, casting a last look over the blood spattered ruins, " I hope it was quick, whoever you were, you poor, stupid bastard." Feeling somewhat foolish, she sketches a quick salute to the empty room as she leaves, boots ringing hollowly through the silence.